When you think of how many people you meet in life, and not just the ones you shake the hand of and learn their names I mean everybody that you have a conversation with, from good friends to teachers to store clerks to old ladies on the bus that just love a good natter. These numbers could easily reach the upward millions.
I have come to find that in life there are certain people you simply have to meet to live a fulfilling life, and I don’t mean heroes, celebrities or your mate from accounting cos he’s an absolute legend, I mean types of people.
Firstly it’s pretty obvious that if you stand any hope of leading a life to the full you simply must have good friends. Friendship is the beginning, middle and end. Of course family comes into it and that goes without saying but I can truly, honestly say that without my friends; who knows where I may have ended up. But life isn’t just about the people you will connect with for the rest of time. Think about those other people.
The single serving friends (thank you Fight Club) that you may meet just once. Whether it be on a train journey, a plane, in a restaurant. These people come into your life with such happenstance that you are thrust into conversation about anything. It may start with the weather, a shared complaint about bad customer service, but there are two questions that will inevitably be asked should the conversation continue; where are you from? What do you do?
From these two questions a whole conversation can open up, and yes it may be boring, idle chit chat but try conversing with someone you have never met without asking one of these two questions (variations do not count).
The next lot of people are an extension of the previously listed single serving friends, but they still fit into the same category. They are friends that you will meet once in life but for an extended period of time. You may find yourselves travelling with this person. They may share the same time period in a city or place and you’ll find you spend most of your time there connected to this person. For a brief period of a few days, this person may become the most trusted person in the world to you. They will become your confidante, your friend, maybe even your lover and then without a trace they will be gone from your life never to be seen or heard of again (although thanks to facebook this is becoming increasingly harder).
Then of course you have the friends that are not even friends, they are acquaintances. They are the people that are always on shift every time you seem to go into Starbucks for your morning coffee. They are people that catch the same bus to work everyday. You will have fleeting conversations which will rarely remove itself from the usual ‘how are you’, ‘leave room for milk please’, but sometimes there are moments with these people that you become truly appreciative of. It may be the compliment they offer you about your new haircut when no one else notices, or even just that person to bitch at for five minutes about your boss just to relieve stress which quite frankly had it not been relieved you may have just walked back into work with a can of petrol and torched the place (ok maybe you never would but everybody’s thought about it… right?)
My point is that even though you can lead a happy life with the friends and family that you will always care about and they will always love you no matter what, it’s these little people, the smaller moments in your life that can really add the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae that is your life.
It is for this reason that from here on out this blog will be taking on a new direction, I have been waiting for it to find it’s voice and I believe I am in a unique opportunity with regards to my job that I get to see a huge variety of people from all over the world and to spend time with them. They may turn out to be people from any of the above list but I will use this blog to study nations of people as whole; Americans, Europeans, Australians, Asians and even the good ol’ Brits. Who knows I may even find out a thing or two about myself along the way but stay tuned, we’ll be right back after these short messages.
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